Tweedsmuir Park Lodge

Grizzly Bear Cubs Released Back Into the Wild

The 4 grizzly bear cubs that were orphaned in 2010, survived the summer of 2011 after their release back into the wild, and adapted well to their freedom. Angelika has informed us that the attached radio collars worked extremely well, helping the researchers and wildlife specialists to gather a wealth of information on the activities of the little adventurers.

The cubs were released in pairs at two different places—Jason and Drew stuck together all summer and fattened up so well that in September, Jason lost his collar, soon followed by Drew. Angelika believes that this is due also to a fair amount of tugging, as you can imagine bear cubs must spend a great deal of time wrestling each other, scratching and squirming around in many fashions. The crew retrieved one of the collars this fall and will be searching for the other one next spring (very resistant devices!).

The other pair, Lori and Dean did split up on the day of release and the crew were also able to track their activities up to now. It appreas that Lori went into hibernation at the end of October at around 1200 meters, while Dean is stil doing a bit of foraging around. He was even sighted by one of the forestry agents last month. He ran away as they approached, which is a healthy behavior for a wild bear. He was looking like a very healthy grizzly.